Fresh coffee at the ready? We’ve got markets trying to figure out when the AI Bubble is over, how high silver will go on prospects of use in solid-state batteries, and a better-than-even chance of a major ground war in Europe in ’26. So, lots of moving pieces to worry about. But that’s (more or less) distant prospects. We like living in “the Now” (also known as “point time.” where “Flow time” is running can wait…
For now, let’s click through Economics> Consumer capture> Food where it will all fall into place.
Inflation Now
There is no such thing; not really. Because the inflation gibberish just out today is now what you’ll find at the stores today. This is all rearview stuff. Useful? Uh-huh. But don’t try actually spending this way.
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis over the 2 months from September 2025 to November 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 2.7 percent before seasonal adjustment. BLS did not collect survey data for October 2025 due to a lapse in appropriations.
The seasonally adjusted index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent over the 2 months ending in November. From September to November, the index for shelter increased 0.2 percent. The energy index rose 1.1 percent over the same 2-month period and the food index increased 0.1 percent. Other indexes which increased over the 2 months ending in November include household furnishings and operations, communication, and personal care. In contrast, the indexes for lodging away from home, recreation, and apparel decreased over the same 2-month period.
The all items index rose 2.7 percent for the 12 months ending November, after rising 3.0 percent over the 12 months ending September.
For those new to our (occasionally irreverent) economic views: The real economy works like this:
In 2026: Bank on making fewer lifestyle gains.
THAT is because what used to be discretionary spending is being “claimed.” Consequently, “consumer choice” is on our endangered list for next year. Which gets us to?
[Research Note en passant. The claim is real. Nonprofit Organizations; Total Assets, Level (BOGZ1FL162000005Q) | FRED | St. Louis Fed data series BOGZ1FL162000005Q. However: it is not a direct statement from the Fed, as these assets include endowments, investments, property, and other holdings accumulated from various sources (e.g., donations, grants, and revenue), are not solely taxpayer funds. Just to be clear and not incendiary…keeping it real. NGOs are a bigger business than AI – by a long shot and they hold outsized power over governments…]
F4A: Food Is Quietly Becoming a Subscription
Our “Fact for (4) Action” has already been “in play” since home deliveries of online orders became the new normal in the re-engineered social behavior during COVID.
Core idea:
Groceries are shifting from discretionary spending to fixed monthly burden.
Angle:
You can’t out-earn food inflation — only out-plan it.
Action focus:
Lock in one protein source you can store or produce cheaply.
This isn’t a “hot roller” in the headlines. But, we’ve been writing about it for two decades. Go look at “The Coming Protein Cost Explosion” Issue # 246 June 25, 2006.
This gets us into a whole other quicksand pit: When societies reach “Peak Everything” even consumer choices at the grocery store begin to implode. It’s a small trend now, but the war over Consumer Category block spending is game-on. You’re the booby-prize.
War in Store – and More
Give War for Christmas – it’s a killer gift idea!
The astute will notice the 1907 origin date of our hypothetical store. About the time of the Knickerbocker Panic, no?
Still not clear? Sit on Santa’s lap (ahem…)
The Knickerbocker Panic marked the moment financial leverage, liquidity control, and confidence shocks proved more decisive than armies, revealing that economic pressure could cripple nations without firing a shot. From that point forward, power increasingly shifted to those who could trigger or arrest credit freezes, making markets—not battlefields—the primary theater of modern war. We’ve been paying the price ever since. Civilian control of money checked out in 1913, elections became policy monetizations, and imperial currency dreams were made real.
Which – round-about, maybe – does get us to this morning’s Philly Fed report:
“Current Indicators Are Mixed
The diffusion index for current general activity declined 9 points to -10.2 in December, its third consecutive negative reading (see Chart 1). Nearly 28 percent of the firms reported decreases in general activity this month (down from 31 percent last month), while 18 percent reported increases (down from 29 percent); 51 percent reported no change (up from 40 percent). The new orders and shipments indexes both turned positive after falling below zero last month. The new orders index rose 14 points to 5.0 this month, and the shipments index rose 12 points to 3.2.”
And from there, a quickie look at Unemployment Filings.
Nothing to see here, though – so back to War and More…
Praetorian Payday
Somali embezzlers with links to terror didn’t get it all? Trump promises £1,900,000,000 in ‘warrior dividend’ to all US troops before Christmas.
In case you missed it (we watched the Christmas flick Red One, instead): Five key takeaways from Trump’s state-of-the-nation address | Donald Trump News | Al Jazeera. Granted, not a “fly-over source” but it’s not as left as some. Still, reality bites: Fact-checking Trump’s presidential address claim he’s brought gas, grocery prices down.
Drug War in the Pacific now playing: New US strike on alleged drug boat in eastern Pacific kills four as tensions with Venezuela rise. Which is troubling to the geographically-centered who would have guessed Venezuelan drugs would have come up the Caribbean/Atlantic side. But who are we to question Derr Twitter?
Going, going, Bongino: Dan Bongino says he plans to resign as FBI deputy director in January, ending brief tenure. We are expecting some serious confessionals from Bongino – who we think is a 24-kt. guy – when the muzzle comes off. Say, February, perhaps? That would give him time to clear out the desk, cash final checks, and do the ass-ripper of a sit-down. But what media is honest enough and “down the middle” to get such an interview done properly? That’s as hard a choice as quitting. Well, except for the total bullshit in DC over the Epstein debacle. Place continues to be a circle jerk and worse.
Around the Ranch: No Tree Big Enough
A Christmas Reality Check around here these past couple of weeks.
One of Elaine’s boys – mentioned this in a ShopTalk – is going to welding school early in the new year. But, not having a welder, we decided to fix that. Thing is? There’s not a tree big enough (in a normal house) to get all the boxes under it.
Same thing here, too: We’ve got $1,000 worth of building materials landing here this afternoon. 168 12X12 concrete pavers, tons of treated 2X6’s, stair stringers, 2X12’s for risers…usual deck-building fare. Point is? It won’t fit under a tree, either.
And that’s today’s reality check and confessional:
The Reality Check Part: The best presents (sailboats, Porsches, airplanes, great-big grownup power tools) won’t fit under a tree.
Now the Confessional: When we decided to move out into the woods and operate a “tree farm” in east Texas, we didn’t give enough weighting to the changing peoplescape of America during the balance of our time on the Earth Ride.
First: the Christmas tree reality
Real Christmas tree consumption in the U.S. has been sliding for decades, down from roughly 35–36 million trees annually in the 1990s to about 25–27 million in recent years, even as population grew. Fire risk concerns, apartment living, allergy issues, environmental messaging, and sheer hassle have steadily eroded demand, while artificial trees—often reused for a decade or more—now dominate roughly 75–80% of U.S. households. Add in urban density, HOA rules, and rising disposal costs, and it’s clear that Christmas trees are no longer a growth industry; they’re a nostalgia product, slowly shrinking as fewer homes are physically or culturally built around them.
We didn’t go into the short-term tree business, but we used to have it as an option should it ever be needed. As good a strategic thinker as I believe myself to be, I didn’t look at immigration figures or drill down deep enough on this one.
Second: screens, paper, and the quiet tree-saver
Screen ubiquity did something even bigger than kill off some Christmas tree demand—it crushed copier and printer paper usage. Another one of our key assumptions in life-planning back in 2001.
U.S. office paper consumption peaked around 2000–2001 and has fallen by well over 50% since, driven by email, cloud storage, and especially the rise of Adobe’s PDF as a legal, commercial, and archival standard. Estimates from forestry and paper-industry analysts suggest that digital document workflows have saved hundreds of millions of trees globally over the past two decades, with PDFs alone preventing billions of pages from ever being printed. It wasn’t environmental activism that did it—it was convenience, cost, and screens everywhere.
That’s a really good thing – because the survivor trees eat CO2 and poop carbon and nutrients. Still, we have to score our thinking down on not seeing that part coming, either.
The point here? Everyone has an opportunity in Life to go for the Grand Plan (multi-year genius). While we are harvesting the “no debt, great woodlands life” now, the price and products on the demand side have undershot expectations.
Over the holidays – if you take some time to consider your Big Plans of life – we’d share the interesting insight from our most recent quarter century.
Just like “careers for life” have disappeared (mechanical competition, automation, human labor replacement), so too the lifestyle optimizations may become shorter, as well. The days of “being a firefighter” or “steelworker” or “teamster” as a “One and done” life decision has passed.
What may work better is to steal a page from communist government planners: Work on a succession of five-year plans. Shorter temporal horizons, more moves, but maybe – and it IS a maybe – you can get more, bigger, and better out of life.
None of which will fit under a tree.
We’ve already lined out “Live like you’re rich in ’26” but the follow up here?
2026-2027 is a likely period of self-organizing criticality (SOC) where links between Labor, Food, and Inflation will all be in position where massive – unexpected change – may be predicted.
Plan ahead in terms of SOC (sand pile or avalanche at the last second before collapse) and keep BTW in mind. The classic example is the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld (BTW) sandpile model, where grains are added slowly to a grid, building up to this critical point without external tuning—the system naturally evolves there through local rules of redistribution.
Of food, labor, money, and power? Seat belts and tray-tables, friend.
Write when you get rich,
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